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Population: One

And then none

March 15, 2003
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The last Mr. Sterling of the season and probably for good aired last night, and you know what I did? I watched it. You bet.

Most of the hour was spent on the deeply gripping and action-packed story of the Senator’s filibuster, most of which was delivered to an empty Senate. There was a tense little subplot about whether or not he’d be able to go to the bathroom. I think the message of the episode was that if you don’t care whether or not you get reelected, and you can talk for 24 hours straight, you may be able to screw up the budget and cause the United States to default on loans. But the cost will be your hot actor girlfriend.

In retrospect, I should have been recapping the show like this from the start.

Sad sorry man

March 15, 2003
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Charlie Daniels continues to be a sad, sorry little son of a bitch. He sent that “open letter” out to a bunch of people. Tamara Saviano (who works in the music industry) got the letter, apparently directly from Daniels. She responded, from her home, on her own time.

She got fired. After Daniels’ publicist complained.

So not only is Daniels revealing himself as the worst kind of idiot, but if you dare to disagree with him, he’ll see if he can get you fired.

(Via Textism, via Electrolite.)

They're here

March 14, 2003
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The good people at CafePress have finally added data CDs and audio CDs to their product list. You have to send in a master, but they’re working on allowing you to upload MP3s instead. CafePress stores will include audio samples for audio CDs, and the packaging is full jewel cases with inserts. I can’t tell if CafePress’s CDs are commercial grade or CD-Rs. The base price for CDs is $4.95, and shipping and handling is $5 for the first item — so pricing is pretty competitive. You could get slightly better prices going with a specialized CD fulfillment house, but the interfaces there are not as slick.

Can’t wait for the book offerings.

My character

March 14, 2003
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I think any pen and paper RPG designer could warn these folks about the perils of their idea. But it’d be more fun to watch them cope with finding out themselves.

“Hey, let me tell you about my character!”

Some spam is Icke

March 13, 2003
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I got a spam today entitled “bryant, Housing market may be cooling – Rates Tick Up”. Inside there was a lengthy screed regarding Prime Minister Howard Wilson and the CIA. Some investigation on the Web revealed that it’s an excerpt from Chapter 15 of the Unauthorized Biography of George Bush, by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin. This appears to have some connection to David Icke. There is no visible connection at all to the housing market.

If I never post again because I’ve been kidnapped by giant reptiles posing as the Rothschildes, you’ll know why.

Me just dumb pawn

March 12, 2003
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I’ve gotta be missing something in this CNN article. Here’s the money quote:

The Bush administration believes that it is one vote shy of having nine of 15 votes needed on a U.N. Security Council resolution that sets a Monday deadline for Iraqi compliance, a senior U.S. State Department official said, and officials are focusing diplomatic energies on Mexico and Chile to secure their backing.

Germany, Russia, China, France, and Syria are firmly against. That’s 5 out of the 15. The US, UK, Spain, and Bulgaria are your clear yes votes. That’s 4 yes votes out of the 9 needed.

That leaves Pakistan, Mexico, Guinea, Chile, Cameroon, and Angola. For the CNN quote above to be accurate, all of those countries except Chile and Mexico would need to have signed on. However, just yesterday, Pakistan said it would abstain. Note also that the three African nations in the undecided list have historical and economic ties to France.

So did Pakistan change its mind? Did all three of the African countries decide to jump to the American side? Would Rumsfeld have made damaging comments if the undecideds were lining up on the US/UK side anyhow? Is the CNN article just a calculated leak of false information? God knows.

Edit: The article now says Pakistan changed its mind and all three of the African countries will vote yes. So that answers those questions, except for the one about Rumsfeld. You know… particularly after the Blix drone reporting mess, I’m starting to wonder if it’s a good thing that CNN.com is OK with altering stories after they’ve been posted. From a journalistic reliability standpoint, I’d like to see CNN articles marked as either fixed or subject to change.

Cutting edge, as it were

March 12, 2003
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I got sick and tired of reading people talking about this cool Steven Erikson guy, so I drifted on over to Chapters.ca and picked up the first three books of his Malazan Empire series.

It’s scheduled to be a 10 book series when all is said and done, with each book standing alone to a certain degree. When I got the first three, I found myself with about 2,800 pages of fiction sitting in front of me, which was a bit offputting. Stubborn, I tucked into the first one. Three chapters in and I was totally hooked.

The plotlines echo Glen Cook, and in particular the Black Company and Dread Empire books. Erikson attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and Glen Cook hit pretty much every SF convention in that area; I’d be surprised if Erikson wasn’t a Cook fan. However, the writing style is quite different: Erikson’s prose has an elegant sheen which betrays his history in the mainstream literary arena. (Erikson is a pseudonym; his other publisher asked him to use one for his fantasy work.)

I am in the blissful state that comes with knowing I have around 10,000 pages of this stuff ahead of me. A sample, now:

Tattersail tracked the man as he joined his comrade at Hairlock’s side, striving to see through the muck and blood covering his uniform. “Who are you people?”

“Ninth squad, the Second.”

“Ninth?” The breath hissed from her teeth. “You’re Bridgeburners.” Her eyes narrowed on the battered sergeant. “The Ninth. That makes you Whiskeyjack.”

He seemed to flinch.

Tattersail found her mouth dry. She cleared her throat. “I’ve heard of you, of course. I’ve heard the —”

“Doesn’t matter,” he interrupted, his voice grating. “Old stories grow like weeds.”

She rubbed at her face, feeling grime gather under her nails. Bridgeburners. They’d been the old Emperor’s elite, his favorites, but since Laseen’s bloody coup nine years ago they’d been pushed hard into every rat’s nest in sight. Almost a decade of this had cut them down to a single, undermanned division. Among them, names had emerged. The survivors, mostly squad sergeants, names that pushed their way into the Malazan armies on Genabackis, and beyond. Names, spicing the already sweeping legend of Onearm’s Host. Detoran, Antsy, Spindle, Whiskeyjack. Names heavy with glory and bitter with the cynicism that every army feeds on. They carried with them like an emblazoned standard the madness of this unending campaign.

Isolation and not

March 12, 2003
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Joshua Marshall has a nice little piece on unilateralism, multilateralism, anti-Americanism, and the UN today. I’m going to offer a couple more points:

Tacitus quite accurately pointed out to me that there was a vein of anti-Americanism even directly after 9/11; it’s not as if everyone in the world was our friends. On thinking about that a little more, though, I’m not sure it’s a distinctive statement. One could as easily point out that there’s always been a vein of anti-French sentiment in the world, and a vein of anti-British sentiment, and a vein of anti-British sentiment. It goes with the territory. Humans have a xenophobic streak. Bush should still be held accountable for fanning the spark of anti-Americanism into a roaring flame.

Second point: Chirac is impressing the hell out of me. Not in a moral sense, but as a politician. I realized the other day that he’s put together a coalition consisting of France, Germany, and Russia. France and Germany? Germany and Russia? France and Russia? Wasn’t there been some animosity of considerable proportions between those countries not too long ago?

Now, you can say that they’re just uniting because they have similar interests, but that kind of begs the question of why they have similar interests in this case. They’re not really terribly similar politically. They all have very different problems. And who’d have guessed that France would wind up as the organizer, anyhow?

Chirac’s a hell of a diplomat, no matter how much he pisses us off. I hope nobody’s underestimating him.

The map is not the name

March 12, 2003
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I would like to call attention to some foolish people and some people who are abrogating their responsibility. Representatives Bob Ney (R-OH) and Walter Jones (R-NC) arranged to remove French fries and French toast from the House of Representatives cafeteria menu. This is about the stupidest symbolic act ever. Duh.

But heck, why stop with Ney and Jones? Ney is Chairman of the Committee on House Administration, which is responsible for this change. The other members of the committee are certainly culpable: Vernon J. Ehlers, (R-MI), John L. Mica (R-FL), John Linder (R-GA), John T. Doolittle (R-CA), Thomas M. Reynolds (R-NY), John B. Larson (D-CT), Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA), and Robert Brady (D-PA). (Apparently being named John is one of the criteria for being on this committee.)

I can’t quite believe they all happened to be out of the room while Representative Ney was being a blithering idiot.

When will you game?

March 11, 2003
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New week, new Game WISH. The question today:

How do you prioritize gaming in your life to make sure it happens on an ongoing basis? Are there circumstances or scheduling issues that make it more or less likely for you to participate in a gaming session or a campaign? How do you work around these issues, or can you?

I don’t really have that many commitments outside gaming — I tend to like to live a relatively unencumbered life. Even taking dating into account, I can swing a couple of biweekly games fairly easily. On the other hand, weekly games are a bit much of a commitment for me, which is the flip side of that attitude.

What works for me is firm scheduling, as far as possible in advance, preferably with reminders a couple of days before the fact. I like solid dates that don’t change. As I’ve hit the dire thirties, I’ve found that it’s easier to find gamers my own age who can make dates when they promise they will.

Not missing a date is important. Once a game misses two or three sessions, it’s really hard to get back into the swing of things. I’ve found another useful trick is to have something else to play — a one-shot, generally — on nights when you don’t otherwise have quorum. I’ve been thinking it might make sense to actually have characters generated for just such a night, too; I may try and convince the campaign I’m currently in to try that. (Hi, guys!)